THROUGH FEMININE LENS: VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN WOMEN CONSTRUCTING THE IMAGE OF SERBIAN WOMEN IN THEIR TRAVEL ACCOUNTS
THROUGH FEMININE LENS: VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN WOMEN CONSTRUCTING THE IMAGE OF SERBIAN WOMEN IN THEIR TRAVEL ACCOUNTS

Summary/Abstract: While scarce Western European female had travelled through the Balkans for several centuries prior, the majority of women’s travel accounts on the region started more frequently occurring in the eighteenth, with the their numbers increasing throughout the nineteenth century. Keeping in mind feminine characterization of the Orient, a question poses itself: how the British women who were charmed by the Balkans, its hardships and its distinctively masculine feel, saw and presented the Balkan and in this case Serbian woman. This paper will analyse how British women travellers constructed the view of Serbian women, keeping in mind the issues they had to negotiate, and which stemmed mostly from their gender. Th is article aims to contribute to the growing debate on British ‘Balkanism’ by taking into discussion feminine elements of the discourse. The subject matter of the paper is even more so signifi cant it is understood that the case of British women’s representation (as a group) of Serbian women has not been undertaken as of yet.

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